Tuesday, February 17, 2009

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Save the [small laptops]


5 Comments:

  1. Spot on. Just to add to the pot, people seem to miss the point that Psion brought out a "Nebook Pro" in very late 2003... surely that has a lifespan of a couple of years or more? I'm sick of reading that Psion abandoned Netbook in 2003 when that just isn't true!

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 2/18/2009 11:59:00 PM
     

  2. Yep, that's another good point. There are reviews of the Pro well into 2004. If we're counting from when the product was discontinued, as opposed to introduced, it was at most four years later when Intel picked up the name. That's not a long enough span to consider a name abandoned.

    By Blogger Sumocat, at 2/19/2009 09:15:00 AM
     

  3. The ThinkPad is an enforceable fanciful mark. It was created specifically to serve as a trademark because some engineer got the idea from looking at his leather notepad bearing the company tagline "Think", hence "ThinkPad", not "thinking notepad" as you claim - who knows where you got that idea from.

    Your conspiracy theory doesn't hold water either because people were using the term netbook to describe the OLPC back in 2005 and again for Acer in 2007. Intel didn't get on the bandwagon until 2008, by which time the horse had well and truly bolted.

    Anyway I hate to be the one to burst your bubble but while filing a Petition to Cancel Psion's mark we found that Dell had pegged us at the post. Not only that, but they added to our pleadings of abandonment and genericide a claim of fraud relating to a sworn declaration of use & incontestability made by a senior employee at Psion. Oops.

    Psion never had a chance with this - they should have dusted off the blueprints and waltzed into the marketplace with the netbook's iPhone (yes, we agree it was that good). Too bad they've gone and pissed off the vast majority of the reviewers, in some case hitting them hard in the back pocket by cutting off their ad revenue.

    FWIW you're probably the only person outside of Psion supporting them right now - even their own alumni and resellers are embarrassed by their recent antics.

    Over and out.

    STN

    By Blogger Save the Netbooks, at 2/19/2009 01:50:00 PM
     

  4. You make a lot of claims, but you don't back them up. You claim the term's been in use since OLPC (One LAPTOP Per Child), but you don't point to any use. Support your argument and then I'll take it seriously. By contrast, I've already gone back through my two favorite mobile tech sites and found first "netbook" mentions in 2008.

    http://jkontherun.com/page/50/?s=netbook
    http://www.gottabemobile.com/tag/netbook/page/20

    You want to argue against me, show me some data, or at least make a strong argument as Dell did with their petition. BTW, I already analyzed the petition and found its pivotal points, which I'll post here later. It can stand if not properly countered, but Dell is taking a big risk with the claim of genericness. Without evidence to prove the "netbook" term was genericized before 2008, they risk serious backlash. You want to be on the right side of this, find that evidence.

    By Blogger Sumocat, at 2/19/2009 02:46:00 PM
     

  5. Oh wait, I did find an earlier mention of a netbook on Gizmodo. However, I wouldn't try to use it to support your case.

    http://gizmodo.com/search/netbook/bydate/?refId=260&timerange=all

    By Blogger Sumocat, at 2/19/2009 02:55:00 PM
     

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